House panel advances bill requiring Soo Locks security study

Washington ― A U.S. House panel advanced a bipartisan bill Tuesday calling for new study of potential security shortfalls at the Soo Locks, as well as the supply chain and economic impacts of a potential failure at the lock complex at Sault Ste. Marie.

The legislation, led by Republican U.S. Rep. John James of Farmington Hills, passed the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure under a voice vote Tuesday. Co-sponsors include U.S. Reps. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, and Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids.

The bill directs the secretaries of transportation and defense, in coordination with the commandant of the Coast Guard, to submit the study to Congress within a year of enactment, asking the agencies to also recommend measures to strengthen security at the shipping lock complex and to reduce impacts to supply chains in the event of a Soo Locks failure or attack.

James noted that an average of 7,000 vessels pass through the locks annually, including 95% of the iron ore in the United States.

"The security of the Soo Locks isn't just important for my home state Michigan. It is critical to the United States' economy and to our national security," James said during the committee meeting. "Failing to move this bill forward not only jeopardizes our country's national security, it leaves America waiting for economic disaster to happen."

More:$1.1B Soo Locks project could cost more than triple estimates

Committee Chairman Sam Graves, R-Missouri, and the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Washington, both spoke in support of the legislation Tuesday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing a massive, ongoing project to modernize the Soo Locks complex on the St. Mary's River in the Upper Peninsula connecting Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes.

Previous studies of the potential economic consequences of a Soo Locks failure have been conducted by the Department of Homeland Security and the Army Corps. The Corps in 2018 concluded that unexpected outage of the 1,200-foot-long Poe lock would create a "bottleneck," disrupting the supply chain for steel production and thus manufacturing — particularly the auto industry.

A 2015 Department of Homeland Security report that found no alternative transportation mode exists for getting iron ore from Minnesota mines to steel mills on the lower Great Lakes. 

The Poe is only one of the four aging locks owned and operated by the Army Corps in the Soo that is big enough to handle the largest freighters that carry 89 percent of the cargo through the corridor.

The Michigan delegation had pushed for years for the Army Corps to replace two outdated locks at the Soo with a second, 1,200-foot-long lock to allow for better maintenance and to keep shipping traffic moving when the Poe lock needed repairs.

The Army Corps' 2018 study provided the economic analysis score that allowed the project to finally compete for construction funding, after years of delay.

Congress in December reauthorized the ongoing project to build the new lock at $3.2 billion, which is triple what it had been expected to cost but should allow construction to stay on track, according to the Army Corps.

The Army Corps' budget request for fiscal 2024 proposes to set up a $235 million reserve fund specifically to help complete construction on the Soo Lock project, officials said.

James this spring requested $394 million in funding for the project in 2024 as part of a series of appropriations requests to the House Appropriations Committee.

mburke@detroitnews.com